First, belated congrats to Red Sox Nation today for their second ring in the last four years. That’s impressive – and, it was well earned this season, holding off the Yankees’ late charge, beating the Angels, coming back against the Indians, pounding the Rockies in four, etc.

I heard that Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione ended the game last night with “The Red Sox become the first team in the twenty-first century to win two world championships. Can you believe it?!”

Now, Yankees fans, cannot get on Joe too much for this one – after all, have you ever heard John Sterling on the radio? Still, many are asking the question these days – including Time Magazine – are the Red Sox now the Yankees? Here’s what the Boston brass is saying (according to Time):

Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino famously called the Yankees “the Evil Empire” for spending cash to win World Series after World Series. But with a $143 million payroll, two Series trophies on his mantle and the promise of more to come, Lucchino is no Luke Skywalker.

Yankee comparisons, not surprisingly, make the Boston brass uneasy. “We don’t quite have the resources they do,” says Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. The Yankees payroll hit $195 million this year, still comfortably ahead of Boston’s figure. “I don’t buy into it,” he says. Lucchino, standing in Boston’s champagne-splattered clubhouse, fended off all Yankee talk. “We aren’t the old Yankees, new Yankees, anybody’s Yankees,” he says. “We ain’t trying to be no Yankees.”

It’s too bad, that, even in victory, for the Red Sox, it always comes back to the Yankees, somehow. In any event, again, congrats to Sox – they had a great plan and executed it.